Chapel Hill, NC – Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless, MD, professor of medicine and genetics and Associate Director for Translational Research at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center has been appointed the Wellcome Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research. The professorship was established by the School of Medicine in 1988 with gifts from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the William A. Smith Trust of Wadesboro, NC. The gifts were supplemented by the state of North Carolina the Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund to create the endowed professorship.

Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Idoia Garcia, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Timothy Gershon, MD, PhD, has been awarded a Department of Defense Visionary Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. The peer-reviewed award is intended to support exceptionally talented recent medical or other doctoral graduates in their pursuit of cutting-edge, innovative, high-risk/high-impact cancer research during their postdoctoral fellowship.

Ken Jacobson, PhD, Kenan Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in the UNC School of Medicine, received the Gregorio Weber Award for Excellence in Fluorescence Theory and Applications at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society in Baltimore, Maryland.